Kraken: The True Story of the Sea Witch
by Stella Artois
Summary: The true story of Ursula, the Sea Witch, her love of a human, her betrayal of her people, her banishment, and her revenge in the form of Ariel.
1. Chapter 1

Kraken: The True Story of the Sea Witch

Kraken: The True Story of the Sea Witch

This story is based somewhat on the Hans Christian Anderson Little Mermaid, but also on the Disney version.

Chapter I:

An Introduction

"_Beyond this stood the Witch's house, in the centre of a strange forest, in which all the trees and flowers were polypi, half animals and half plants; they looked like serpents with a hundred heads growing out of the ground. The branches were long slimy arms, with fingers like flexible worms, moving limb after limb from the root to the top. All that could be reached in the sea they seized upon, and held fast, so that it never escaped from their clutches. The little mermaid was so alarmed at what she saw, that she stood still, and her heart beat with fear, and she was very nearly turning back; but she thought of the prince, and of the human soul for which she longed, and her courage returned. She fastened her long flowing hair round her head, so that the polypi might not seize hold of it. She laid her hands together across her bosom, and then she darted forward as a fish shoots through the water, between the supple arms and fingers of the ugly polypi, which were stretched out on each side of her. She saw that each held in its grasp something it had seized with its numerous little arms, as if they were iron bands. The white skeletons of human beings who had perished at sea, and had sunk down into the deep waters, skeletons of land animals, oars, rudders, and chests of ships were lying tightly grasped by their clinging arms; even a little mermaid, whom they had caught and strangled; and this seemed the most shocking of all to the little princess."_

_-"The Little Mermaid", Hans Christian Anderson_

This is a story that begins and ends in the sea. It is not what you would call a happy story, so it is perhaps appropriate that I begin it in the deepest depths of the ocean, where no sunlit reaches, and all is cold blackness.

This far below the warm, sunlit waters is as unlike anything, that you, happy reader, can possibly comprehend. To describe to you the crushing blackness which is my home, is something akin to describing light to a man who has been born blind. But useless though it may be, I shall try anyway, for in my arrogance I believe that mine is a story that ought to be told.

Down here dwell creatures that have never experienced the warm motherly touch of sunlight. They are wretched, blind and terrifying enough to drive one mad if they were seen in the light of day. In my musings I believe that this is why we are relegated to the cold depths, because creatures such as ourselves are a blight, and affront to all life, a sin, that must be hidden, like squirming things under a rock.

You who live in the light cannot understand the utter absence of it, for even your blackest nights are penetrated by the light of the moon and the stars. Believe me though, when I say that darkness like this is absolute. It is a living, breathing, malignant thing that wraps itself around you, covering your eyes, stopping your ears, filling the mouth and lungs and stilling the heart.

This place I call home. It is the only home that would have me, for if, in my speech, I have given you any reason to believe me different from the creatures that dwell here, you are sorely mistaken. This is where I belong. When I was sent down here, so many years ago, the darkness enveloped me in itself cold arms like a friend; loving and needing.

I am a creature of legend; the stuff of sailor's stories, the discourse of their fearful musings, as they drift through lonely, haunted waters. You might have heard my name before; perhaps in a volume of tales of the supernatural. Perhaps your father, or grandfather is a seafaring man, who fascinated and terrified you with tales of me. Maybe you are one of those who claim to have seem me, one of the many liars who barter falsehoods for a pint of something strong. Or maybe you really have seen me; seen my terrible eye peering up at you out of the cold depths.

You might have heard my name before; they call me Kraken.


	2. Chapter 2

Thank you to my wonderful reviewers, Anna Craft and Lazy Chesnut

Thank you to my wonderful reviewers, Anna Craft, LazyChesnut and Leah Day! Your wonderful words of support have managed to motivate me to continue writing this story in spite of my laziness (and probably to the detriment of my school work).

Ch. 1 

A Beginning

_I started early, took my dog, _

_And visited the sea; _

_The mermaids in the basement _

_Came out to look at me, _

_And frigates in the upper floor_

_Extended hempen hands, _

_Presuming me to be a mouse _

_Aground, upon the sands._

_-Emily Dickinson_

When I was young, the waters I swam in were green, warm and sweet. Currents of brightly colored tropical fish would weave in and amongst our homes and wreath themselves like brilliant garlands through our hair. Jellyfish floated like translucent pillows, clouds in our skies, grouping together and drifting past. Eel- like sea snakes drifted in and out of the coral with the occasional sea turtle wending its steady way past.

There were plenty of dangers to be had in this haven of my youth, even in spite of it's beauties, and the abundance of vicious and poisonous creatures made venturing away from our homes a thrilling dare. Portuguese man o' war jellyfish and blue-ringed octopus could be found in the coral beds that lined our shelter. Sharks too, were profuse, and more than willing to snatch the unwary wanderer or the occasional youngling, escaping the watchful eyes of parents and neighbors.

The things we feared the most, however, were also the things that held the most fascination in our eyes, namely the passing of ships, their dark bulks hanging low in the water, their wakes stirring sand and plants, and scattering fish. We would group silently under the storm cloud of the ship, and watch in terror and greed as the ships passed, our mouths and eyes opened, reflecting the dark passage.

Men, we knew, were aboard these ships, and that thought thrilled and terrified all of us, young and old. Knowledge of men had passed from mouth to mouth over the centuries in an effort to preserve our ties with them. Ties we felt with the very blood in our veins, we felt as brothers separated at birth; they on the land and we at sea.

Men had many names for us, from the days when they knew us; Lorelei, Mermaid or Siren, from when we would sing to them from our treacherous rocks, forgetting their delicacy and mortality. Some of our own legends told of mermaids and men living together as men and women, women and men; begetting children and living as one. Nothing like this had occurred in our recent memories, so we could only skeptically take these tales as being true. Though unproved, they served as temptation for all who heard them; temptation to defy expectations of parents and live amongst the humans. Relationships between men and Mermaid were not expressly forbidden by any rules that we knew of, nor had our king, Triton issued any decrees pertaining to the matter. However, forbidden or no, contacting a human or being seen with one, was generally considered taboo. Proscribed enough so that any sensible Mermaid dared not broach the subject with anything but the utmost subtlety, when questioning their elders or parents.

In my own investigations, I had more than once heard humans referred to as 'Hunters'; a word gleaned from tales passing nomads told of the wicked spears and nets that men were said to use on the creatures of the sea. Some told of the torturous deaths of whales, prized for blubber, oil and ivory all occurring in colder waters than I had ever known.

From time to time, items from the world of men would float down in and around our homes; the flotsam of a forbidden world; combs, mirrors, broken barrels, pots, candlesticks and other objects of fascination. Amongst this innocent matter were sometimes found darker riches; coffins, broken, with white shards of bones peering through weed and wood to glow faintly in the dark water. Cannonballs and wreckages of masts and sails, crumpled and white, like the bones of an ancient and enormous creature.

I, like most of my companions, was naturally curious about these treasures, as we all considered them to be. As we grew older, braver and more foolish, we would wander further away from the safety of our homes in search of newer and more interesting finds. Spent in this fashion, my adolescent years were happy, but mostly uneventful. It always seemed to me that the joy I gleaned from life was mostly in the form of leavings from the human world. In time, the eyes of my former playmates turned away from the darker waters, and they began to plan for lives with each other. We, who had once been so close, began to drift away from one another, they to husbands and homes, and I to unexplored shipwrecks. I could not even pretend to be interested in the pursuits they had taken up. All I wanted was to continue in my childish pursuits that had always afforded me such pleasure. I had never been interested in the men of my kind, and frankly, they had never been interested in me as anything other than a comrade in the pursuit of forbidden games.

I was not blonde or voluptuous, but rather thin, with large, black eyes. I had heard before that I was unusual looking, but it had never meant much until I reached adolescence and realized that the qualities I had to offer were unappealing to a man searching for a wife. I was long and lean and dark, and my hair was as black as the deepest waters, floating around my head, weed-like. I was a storm cloud amongst my fair, silvery friends, and it was a difference that I felt rather more acutely than they. Had I perhaps a personality more suited to put myself and others at ease, I might have eventually married, made a home for myself and had a child. But I was quiet, and prone to secretiveness and as time went on, I found myself more and more alone in my pursuits.

Subsequently, I grew even more daring in my pursuit of the elusive figures of men, and as a result, it was not long before I began to surface above the water to view my strange surroundings. You will think me foolish for this, and I do not disagree, but consider if you will, my deep loneliness in a world of family and friends that I believed to be indifferent to my very existence. I thought perhaps that I could find my place amongst the objects that I found so fascinating. Perhaps, like the mermaids of legend, I could join the world of men. If these thoughts are foolish, think of your loneliest hours and tell me of the darkest of your thoughts, and perhaps they will not be so dissimilar.


	3. Chapter 3

Ch. 3: First Sight

_I walked beside the evening sea,_

_And dreamed a dream that could not be;_

_The waves that plunged along the shore_

_Said only—"Dreamer, dream no more!"_

_But still the legions charged the beach; _

_Loud rang their battle-cry, like speech;_

_But changed was the imperial strain:_

_It murmured—"Dreamer, dream again!"_

_I homeward turned from out the gloom,—_

_That sound I heard not in my room; _

_But suddenly a sound, that stirred_

_Within my very breast, I heard._

_It was my heart, that like a sea_

_Within my breast beat ceaselessly:_

_But like the waves along the shore, _

_It said—"Dream on!" and "Dream no more!"_

-"Ebb and Flow" by George William Curtis

It would be long time before I actually saw a human on the land, for though our homes were near to the shore, it was a fairly

deserted spit of sand to which I came. Despite the lack of human life, I still found many things to interest the eyes of one who

had never breathed the salty air that now wafted around me. When my head first through broke the waves, I felt all the

exposure of a sea bird floating on vast, empty expanses of ocean. I hid my self amongst the boulders that jutted menacingly

from the water, and drink in the sights and sounds that so overwhelmed my senses.

I saw plants and animals that I had no names for; and I cast off the mantle that had formerly blanketed some of my senses; I

smelled for the first time ever; the salt of the air, the sun, and even my own warm flesh. The feel of the air against my skin

was wholly new, a foreign touch that promised a life never again deemed to be ordinary. I heard, like I had never heard

before; the shrill cries of sea birds and the thunderous crash of waves breaking on the shore, filling me with a sense of my

own inferiority. The lonely blue expanses of the ocean faded from my mind in the face of the thrill of this new world.

You may wonder, dear reader, how it was that I found it so easy, and indeed, so delightful, to breathe the alien air of my new

environs. The answer, I fear, may disappoint you, for I cannot explain the science of my adaptability. I did not even know that

it should have been a problem for me. Whatever God made us, made us to bridge the gap between land and sea, and I do

not question His designs, not even now. At any rate, it was further evidence to me that land was where I belonged, and I felt

more than ever the inexorable tug of the link between men and Mermaid.

To slide back into my watery world after these new sensations, was to slip into a death shroud. Not only was the life I had

lived so hum drum in comparison to the world above, but I was now in the awkward position of being one of the few

uncoupled young people left in our community. I had no physical defects, apart from my unusual appearance, so I had not the

excuses of the others so unfortunate as to be mate-less. My parents, whose upbringing of me was at best indifferent, now

made it obvious that my continued imposition would not be tolerated. Staying at home was such an awkward situation that I

spent most of my time in the unattached state that nomads find themselves in, drifting through our watery world with no ties

to any person or place.

It was around this time that our kingdom began to prepare for the birth of the king's sixth daughter. The birth of the new

little princess was an occasion for as much pomp and circumstance as could be summoned. A gathering of all our kind was

planned, as well as dancing, feasting and other festivities. At the culmination of all this would be the introduction of the infant

princess to her people. Upon hearing of this from a passing stranger, I made the decision to attend, as a last hurrah before I

parted company with all that had previously bound me to my old life.

The event itself took place in the area that served as the palace for the king, his dowager mother, and the queen. It was a

cathedral of coral; towering above its meaner surroundings like a bully over his cowering victim. I had not had an occasion to

venture to this part of the reef before the christening, so my first sight of the palace was intimidating, to put it mildly. The

crowds that had gathered at the palace for the celebration were no less intimidating to eyes unused to such numbers.

Gathered in the coral were more mermaids than I had ever seen in my short, and seemingly stunted existence.

There were of course, other communities apart from my own, and apart from these, there were the nomads who drifted in like

clumps of seaweed. The mermaids there were as different from me, as I was from the golden-haired creatures of my youth.

They were dark-skinned and light-skinned, dark-haired, light-haired, tiny and huge. There were Mediterranean mermaids,

burly and fierce, with scarred arms and hands, from fighting of the savage sharks that terrorized their coasts. Wooly-looking

polar mermaids with thick, curly body hair and strongly muscled tails, covered in dull, gray scales. And the wild-looking Asian

mermaids, with their golden skin and thick, black hair, decorated with hundreds of tiny fish bones. I heard strange tongues

spoken in that place, words that called to mind the weird and far-off waters the speakers hailed from.

I wondered, not infrequently, why so many powerful creatures choose to pay fealty to our king. I knew that his name was

one that incited fear and respect amongst our kind, but it had never before occurred to me to wonder why. I thought,

perhaps, that it had something to do with the extensive guard that the king surrounded himself with; an impressive collection

of the youngest and strongest mermaids to be found and trained in the king's service. I was not yet familiar with the dark

power the king could wield with ease, a power whispered of by those old enough to remember when he had used it last. I

did not know it then, but I would learn it time.


End file.
